Excitations in disordered bosonic optical lattices

Spectral excitations of ultracold gases of bosonic atoms trapped in one dimensional optical lattices with disorder are investigated by means of the variational cluster approach applied to the Bose-Hubbard model. In particular, qualitatively different disorder distributions typically employed in experiments are considered. The computed spectra exhibit a strong dependence on both the shape of the disorder distribution and the disorder strength. We compare alternative results for the Mott gap obtained from its formal definition and from the minimum peak distance, which is the quantity available from experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, version as publishe

Competition Between Charge-Density Waves and Superconductivity in Striped Systems

Switching on interchain coupling in a system of one-dimensional strongly interacting chains often leads to an ordered state. Quite generally, there is a competition between an insulating charge-density-wave and a superconducting state. In the case of repulsive interactions, charge-density wave usually wins over superconductivity. Here, we show that a suitable modulation in the form of a period 4 bond-centered stripe can reverse this balance even in the repulsive case and produce a superconducting state with relatively high temperature.Comment: Proceedings of SCES 04, 2 page

Time-reversal symmetry breaking phase in the Hubbard model: a VCA study

We study the stability of the time-reversal symmetry breaking staggered flux phase of a single band Hubbard model, within the Variational Cluster Approach (VCA). For intermediate and small values of the interaction $U$, we find metastable solutions for the staggered flux phase, with a maximum current per bond at $U\approx 3.2$. However, allowing for antiferromagnetic and superconducting long-range order it turns out that in the region at and close to half filling the antiferromagnetic phase is the most favorable energetically. The effect of nearest-neighbour interaction is also considered. Our results show that a negative nearest-neighbour interaction and finite doping favors the stability of the staggered-flux phase. We also present preliminary results for the three-band Hubbard model obtained with a restricted set of variational parameters. For this case, no spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking phase is found in our calculations.Comment: 9 pages,8 figure